


But the Colors Won’t Always Match Perfectly

by Dillbugg



Series: Pieces in a Puzzle Box (Dream SMP Recovery AU) [4]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: But that’s okay, Dadza pog, Dadza sad :(, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Memory Loss, Multiple Pronouns for Eret (Video Blogging RPF), Recovery, The drowned world, Trans Fundy, Trans Male Character, Trauma over the drowned world featuring Wil and Fundy bonding, Violence related to the military, anarchist Philza, and it might be a bit messy, fundy and his grandpa sit down and talk, his grandpa is Philza, i think that’s so funny, its getting better!, techno back story, tubbo visits a psychiatrist, we’re well into the recovery stages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:15:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27707497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dillbugg/pseuds/Dillbugg
Summary: Tubbo eats a full meal, Phil is reminded of the past. Fundy and Wilbur share their feelings. Things look up.Or;“I’m sofuckingtired of being afraid.”Fundy is quiet for a contemplative moment. Then, he leans down and hugs Wil tight, “In the- the drowned world, I was abandoned and you- from what I understand, you were betrayed?”“And we all carry it- we all carry the drowned world, don’t we?”The room goes hauntingly quiet and for a terrible moment, Fundy wonders if he’s messed up, pushed his dad too far. He wonders if he is going to get pushed away again, left alone again. And then;“No,” Fundy grits his teeth, he’s miscalculated, Wilbur’s going to be angry about him bringing up the drowned world again.“No, I betrayed someone,”
Relationships: Dave | Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Eret & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Floris | Fundy & Phil Watson, Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot, Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot, Niki | Nihachu & Toby Smith | Tubbo, TommyInnit & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Series: Pieces in a Puzzle Box (Dream SMP Recovery AU) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2018948
Comments: 5
Kudos: 172





	But the Colors Won’t Always Match Perfectly

As told by the creak of the chronically locked door, Tubbo has a visitor.

“Tubbo!” A woman’s voice greets him, he smiles, surprising himself.

“Niki,” He says pleasantly, getting up from his chair to give her a hug.

Finally, finally someone he is completely comfortable with. She wraps her arms around him and he sinks into her embrace.

“So, I wanted to let you know that I’ll be the one taking you out and about for a while while Tommy’s gone.” She says, smiling.

Tubbo blinks, “He’s gone?”

“Oh! He didn’t tell you?” Her smile wavers, “Sorry, I didn’t realize. Anyways, he went to visit his dad to figure out if his brothers were staying there. He could be gone anywhere from a week to three or so.”

Tubbo hums, “Okay.” The room is quiet for a moment, Tubbo pulls away and returns to his desk to pick up his things, “Are we going to the uhh, the uhh,”

“The psychiatrist?” Niki supplies.

“Yeah, the psychiatrist.” He feels brighter, and lighter too.

Niki catches sight of the plate on his desk. Scraped clean. She grins at him, he smiles a little, a shy flower under the big, bold sun.

_Fucking finally,_ Niki could shout with glee, but she lets the thought resonate inside of her, _finally, finally, synthesis. We’re getting somewhere. ___

__***_ _

__"I heard you could help," The woman on Phil's porch has newly tipped off the edge into desperation. She clutches at the shoulders of a blond, eternally angry child._ _

__"What's wrong?" Phil asks. He doesn't just take kids from anyone, he commits very very carefully to anyone he thinks he might need to raise in place of their parents._ _

__"The king is holding my trial in three days time," She admits and a shadow crosses the face of the boy who she clings so desperately to. She lifts her chin, "I know enough about this world that I know that I will not be returning from the capital."_ _

__"Do you have no partner?" Phil asks, eyeing the kid warily. There's a deep seated aggression in this boy, and he's done so much work to get Techno out of his destructive habits._ _

__Would it be moral to deny this boy shelter to protect his own sons whom he's already committed to parenting? What if he's exactly who this kid needs? What if he exactly who will cause irreparable damage?_ _

__"My husband is the one who turned me in," she says, "I refuse to leave my son with that monster."_ _

__Phil pinches his nose, it can never be simple, can it? He stares the woman right in the eyes and by the way her hands curl even more tightly into her son's shoulders, he knows she's waiting to be judged. Instead, he says, "I'm sorry you've been put into this position,"_ _

__She relaxes just a bit, but there's the overall tension in her body, "So will you take him?"_ _

__Phil is silent, eyeing the kid thoughtfully. The kid only glares at him, eyes piercing and blue in the sharpest way._ _

__"Yeah." He breathes, "Yeah, I can take him."_ _

__She shakes with relief, "Thank you, oh thank the angels,"_ _

__"After all," Phil says, looking into her eyes and she stills, expecting the worst, "The Mad King is a bane to us all,"_ _

__Her eyes widen, and she doesn't return it, but he understands when her eyes narrow and she grits her teeth._ _

__"Tommy," She says to her son, and he frowns deeply, wrinkles forming under his lips in the way that kids do when they're trying not to cry, "I love you. I love you so much. I'm so sorry. This is the best I can do,"_ _

__She kneels down and embraces her son for perhaps the last time, they cling together in the way that two people who have found the meaning in the world in each other's company._ _

__Phil expects the kid to beg and cry and ask to stay with his mom, but he doesn't, and it's almost worse. Seeing someone so small, so young, not able to be sad but instead falling back on anger._ _

__It's destructive, and in the end, it'll burn him twice as much as it burns anyone else._ _

__Phil looks away, watches the sunset with misty eyes. By the end of the night he's added another kid to his household and his two older sons are tentative at best about the new addition. And Tommy clearly wishes he were anywhere but under Phil's roof, but they'll work through it._ _

__What's the worst that can happen?_ _

__***_ _

__There they sit, at a round wooden table, the father figure, the anarchist, the corrupted, the newly made president and the king. Each and every one of them has a pit of uneasiness in their stomach, devouring and consuming, siphoning away their rational thoughts._ _

__“Tommy, I think it would be best for you to go,” Phil finally speaks up._ _

__It feels like he’s pushing him away, like Phil’s abandoning him on some stranger’s porch. But this time there will be no one who answers the door, who gives him new clothes luxurious enough they don’t sport a single hole, there is no one left to care for him in the way his parents should have, no one who will feed him or bring him into their arms when the world has become too much to handle._ _

__“Alright, fine.” Tommy says, mournfully, “This was your only chance to speak with us about everything father to son, after this we will contact you formally and you may go through our diplomatic representatives.”_ _

__“Tommy, this is my land, and you have no jurisdiction here, and I have given you my final answer. I will not hand my sons over to any government.”_ _

__Tommy closes his eyes, presses his eyelids together, floats unthinkingly in the void for a moment. Then, he whistles a breath past his lips and the world exists again. Phil looks distinctly uncomfortable, discontented with his decision to choose two of his sons over the other._ _

__“Okay,” Tommy says, “We’re leaving right now, come on, Eret.”_ _

__“Right,” He says, standing from his place at the table, leaving his half eaten food on its plate._ _

__Eret and Tommy retreat to the barn out back where their horses are housed. Tommy digs his toe into the patches of grass in the pathway as Eret leads his horse out of the barn, painted a now weathered and peeling red. They mount their horses in silence and begin the journey home._ _

__“I’m sorry Tommy, I shouldn’t have made you come,” Eret says quietly, and when Tommy looks at him he looks small, all hunched in on himself._ _

__“It’s,” Tommy pauses, swallows, and wills his voice to be less rough, “It was necessary. Phil wouldn’t have heard you out.”_ _

__“Will he hear our representatives out?” Eret asks._ _

__Tommy scoffs, “Absolutely not. We’re fighting a losing battle.”_ _

__“Why won’t he listen to authority? I always thought of him as a very collected person…” Eret bites his lip._ _

__Tommy frowns deeply, casts a glance over his shoulder. Phil’s home shrinks with every stride and the porch is empty of anyone. Tommy is relieved no one is on the porch, watching them disappear into the landscape, makes it easier to be angry. But, it makes it infinitely easier to be sad when he looks back and no one is there and he realizes his family has left him all alone._ _

__“I don’t know what's gotten into him,” Tommy lies. He knows exactly what happened to Phil. Or rather, what happened to his sons._ _

__Techno was a king once, after all._ _

__***_ _

__It all happens so fast, one moment a group of six soldiers, clad in shining white armor, appear around the bend of the road. Then, Phil’s speaking to them, hands sweeping wide and slowly, placatingly. Tommy grits his teeth and growls out curses under his breath. Their village is so small, these could very well be the same soldiers who took his mother away from him._ _

__And out of nowhere, Phil’s being grabbed and manhandled into a kneeling position, arms pinned behind him. Tommy’s eyes shutter closed, and his knees buckle. He hits the ground like a sack of bones, and it knocks the breath out of him. He can’t go through this again, not after all the work he’s done to get better._ _

__“Hey!” Tommy snaps his eyes open, that’s Techno, which means things can only get worse. Techno emerges into the open, the painted picture of furious, his wooden sword clutched in hand._ _

__“Tech, Techno,” Phil rasps, “Go inside, Techno, please.”_ _

__But Techno doesn’t listen, instead, he flings a rock at the guard holding Phil with the fury of the sun. They swarm him, and Tommy knows he’s going down. There’s not a single way he’s going to win this fight, no matter how quickly he’s taken to fighting as Phil’s been teaching him._ _

__It’s a seventeen year old against five fully trained power drunk soldiers. It’s not a fight, it’s a bloodbath. By the end, they’re hauling Techno away, his boots dragging in the gravel, his body limp and dangling between two soldier’s arms. Tommy can barely see his face, can barely bring himself to look, but he knows that there’s purple and blue bruises already forming, and one of his arms is bent all funny, most likely broken._ _

__The soldiers disappear around the corner, and Phil is still kneeling in the dust of the road. Techno is gone. Taken from them by the Mad King’s dogs._ _

__***_ _

__“What the fuck is going on?” Phil exclaims, once again on his porch and surprised to see he has a visitor._ _

__The man wrings his hands together nervously, “Sorry to disturb you, sir…” He glances up at Phil, “But I was hoping I could see my father? I heard he might be here?”_ _

__Phil freezes for a moment, throws a glare through the doorway of his house, spots Techno lurking who blanches and shoots him a look as confused as Phil feels._ _

__“Who are you, kid?” Phil asks._ _

__“Uh, my name is Fundy,” He holds his hand out nervously, “I’m Wilbur’s… son. Sort of. It’s complicated.”_ _

__His tail sweeps carefully along the wooden porch, an ear flicks to the side and he reaches up to readjust his hat._ _

__“What the fuck,” Phil says, but shakes his hand anyways, “Come in, then.”_ _

__“Thank you,” He says, and politely steps inside. Phil closes the door behind him, and leads him to a different part of the house._ _

__“Wil,” Phil calls as he enters a bedroom._ _

__“Yeah, dadza?”_ _

__“Your… _son?_ Is here to see you.”_ _

__“Oh shit,” Fundy hears Wilbur say and he steps into the bedroom, “Hey bud.”_ _

__“Hey… dad,”_ _

__Wilbur struggles into a sitting position, the wrapping of his bandages pinching and digging into his skin awkwardly._ _

__Phil closes the door behind him, to give them privacy no doubt. Fundy lingers by the door and Wilbur stares at him, bone deep exhaustion dragging down his movement._ _

__“Um,” Fundy gulps, starts over, “Do you remember, before the uh, the final battle, when you said you despised me?”_ _

__Wilbur breathes in a slow, hitching breath._ _

__“And uh, when I showed you my journal with all of the evidence I had collected against Schlatt to make it easier to undermine his power. And you looked me dead in the eye and you said that I was dead to you, that I could never be your so-“ Fundy chokes and squeezes his eyes shut._ _

__“Fundy,” Wilbur murmurs and Fundy shakes his head._ _

__“Please hear me out, and then you can say whatever you want, promise,” Wilbur nods slowly, “So, the drowned world,”_ _

__“Fundy, please,” Wilbur croaks, and Fundy frowns but lets him speak, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that-“_ _

__They both look away, eyes wandering to keep from looking at each other, Wilbur fixates on a snagged thread sticking out of the woven blanket covering him, “I shouldn’t have said that I despised you. Or that you were dead to me, because when I woke up in the hospital I was just completely relieved to see _you_ there.”_ _

__Fundy opens his mouth, but just ends up dumbly snapping it closed. He isn’t sure what to say to that._ _

__“There’s something wrong with me, Funds.” Wilbur quietly admits, like it's a secret, “I don’t know what's happening, ‘cause I have these moments of clarity and I realize that everything I’m doing is wrong. And then I get hit by this feeling that everyone is against me and I’m so,”_ _

__He chokes on a cough, and Fundy moves to support him where he shudders and fights his way through a coughing fit. Wil leans his shaking head onto his son’s shoulder and Fundy rubs his gloved hand soothingly over his back._ _

__“I’m so _fucking_ tired of being afraid.”_ _

__Fundy is quiet for a contemplative moment. Then, he leans down and hugs Wil tight, “In the- the drowned world, I was abandoned and you- from what I understand, you were betrayed?”_ _

__“And we all carry it- we all carry the drowned world, don’t we?”_ _

__The room goes hauntingly quiet and for a terrible moment, Fundy wonders if he’s messed up, pushed his dad too far. He wonders if he is going to get pushed away again, left alone again. And then;_ _

__“No,” Fundy grits his teeth, he’s miscalculated, Wilbur’s going to be angry about him bringing up the drowned world again._ _

__“No, _I_ betrayed someone,” Wilbur whispers, his voice all hoarse and emotional._ _

__He pushes away from Fundy, looks him dead in the eye, “I left him there, Fundy. That’s why he hates me, because I left him!”_ _

__“Wha-“ Fundy grips Wil by the shoulders, holding him upright, “Who? What are you talking about?”_ _

__Wil laughs breathily, without an ounce of humor._ _

__“Schlatt,” Wilbur breathes, eyes wide and manic, “I left him, Fundy! I left him, and that’s why he hates me, that’s why they all hate me, because I left him behind.”_ _

__***_ _

__Wilbur finds a young girl amongst the ruins of the drowned world. Her hair is short, the ends cling to her chin and neck, an orange the color of the sun setting over the endless sea._ _

__“What’s your name, kid?” Wilbur asks once he’s given her a cup of water, the salt just boiled out of it._ _

__“Fleur,” She answers and Wilbur blinks as a set of white tipped fox ears peak out of her matted hair._ _

__“You’re a fox hybrid,” Wilbur says, like that’ll change the sight in front of him. He frowns as the thought of a ram horned man creeps in._ _

__“Yeah,” She says, “I don’t know where they went, my family.”_ _

__It’s a lie, Wil can tell, but he doesn’t call her out on it. If she doesn’t want to think about her parents being dead, then who would he be to judge?_ _

__Wilbur raises his cup of warm water to his lips. The warmth sets it on the edge of undesirable, but he’s too thirsty to care as much as he perhaps should. He watches the girl drink, thinks about himself. Thinks about Techno being drug away as Phil kneels in the dust, unresponsive._ _

__He can’t do this, can’t bring the kid with him, he’s not even half as strong as Philza was. There’s no way he’ll be able to do it._ _

__“How old are you?” He asks._ _

__“Fifteen,” She answers._ _

__Shit. Wilbur remembers being fifteen, watching his parents’ bodies being carted out of their cozy house. Remembers them being loaded onto the cart along with all the other dead, tossed carelessly and shaken up like a bag of marbles. Like they didn’t matter, as if they weren’t Wilbur’s whole life._ _

__He stands up, stretches his arms a bit, shakes the drowsiness out of his legs, “Well, we leave at sunrise tomorrow morning. Gotta stay on the move if we’re ever gonna find the border.”_ _

__Fleur blinks, then nods, “Ok,” she says, and that’s it. They both settle down for bed, sleep through the night, wake up in the morning, and set out in Wilburs rickety little boat, barely big enough for two._ _

__They make it work. They keep heading west, and Wilbur tells her all about his brothers back home, about how he’s looking to start a little something of his own. She tells him about her family, the inside jokes she'll never get to share with her older brothers ever again._ _

__In the quiet moments, they grow closer, Wilbur carefully mends her clothes and makes sure that she eats, and he smiles when she starts off a rant about her hobby with red stone and coding machines, and even if it's gibberish to his ears, he retains as much as he can._ _

__Stops thinking about her as just some kid, and more someone uniquely loved by him._ _

__Calls her _daughter_ at some point in the blurring days and she cries, calls him _dad_ back and he pulls her into a tight hug._ _

__“I’m gonna get you out of here, kid,” Wil whispers, messing with the ends of her hair, examining the split ends in the dying light, “And you’re never gonna be left alone again, that’s a promise.”_ _

__He keeps it, of course. They reach the border of the world rather jarringly, and simply fall off of it, just as one falls off the edge of a waterfall. They scream the whole way down, and Wilbur realizes quite alarmingly, that their boat, as it tears through the air during their fall, is falling to shreds. He grabs his daughter’s hand and makes the executive decision to abandon the boat._ _

__They hit the water as one entity, clinging so fiercely to each other but are promptly ripped apart by the undercurrent._ _

__Wilbur surfaces and is blinded for a moment by the salt water pouring down his face._ _

__“Fleur, Fleur?” He shrieks out, and his heart sinks when he isn’t met with a response._ _

__“Dad!” Wilbur’s face lights up at her voice._ _

__“Fleur!” He calls again, spots her and paddles over to her,_ _

__She clings to him and he backpaddles towards what looks like land. When they hit the shore, they drag themselves barely out of reach of the tide and immediately collapse._ _

__In the morning, Wilbur wakes up to Fleur standing over him with a bundle of twigs under her arm, and he smiles, “Yep, I’ll figure out something for breakfast,”_ _

__His muscles ache all the way through scavenging and when he finally slumps down next to her with a palm full of berries and pieces of crispy fish for himself, she speaks up._ _

__“Dad,”_ _

__“Yeah, Fleur?”_ _

__“I think I’m going to be a boy,” She announces with no preamble._ _

__Wilbur looks at her, eating her berries with a fake disinterest._ _

__“Ok,” Wil says softly, trying his best to assuage her fears, “So, he/him pronouns and such?”_ _

__“Yeah,” Fleur says, “Also I think I’d like to be called Fundy if ya don’t mind.”_ _

__“Not at all, son.” Wil says. Looks at his hair, in all it’s messy glory._ _

__“Do you want to cut your hair at all?” He asks Fundy and he jerkily nods._ _

__“Sweet, we’ll do that tonight if you want,” Wil says and the thought of surgeries and hormone treatments creep into his mind, “And we’ll talk about what all you want to do on the medical side of things once we reach civilization again.”_ _

__“Okay,” Fundy says, and he’s smiling brighter than Wil has seen him in days._ _

__“Okay,” He agrees._ _

__***_ _

__“Not to be impolite,” Philza starts, handing Fundy a mug of steaming tea, “But Wilbur never mentioned you, so you’ll have to forgive me for not knowing how to act…”_ _

__Fundy slumps in on himself, “Yeah, it’s… it's complicated I s’pose. I don’t know. I was already fairly independent when we first met, so we never really bonded deeply except for in the drowned world.”_ _

__Philza nods wisely, takes a serene sip of his tea, then, “Techno, stop lurking,” Phil barks suddenly and Fundy jolts in his seat, then watches as Techno quietly peels himself off the wall and walks away from the dining room. He hadn’t even realized the man was there._ _

__“Sorry, go on, Fundy,”_ _

__“Right,” He says, his ears twitch silently, “We went our separate ways when I turned nineteen or so, and uh met up by chance in Dream’s lands. I teamed up with him when he decided to create L’Manberg and fought by his side during the war.”_ _

__Fundy sips the tea and feels it warm him from the inside out, “Then, I ran a whole spy operation during Schlatt’s reign as president and by the time I saw him during that, he was lost to his paranoia and told me I was dead to him, so there’s that.”_ _

__“Huh,” Phil says, and of course he’s heard about this, he gets letters from his boys every once and awhile, but it seems different somehow, less biased._ _

__“So, I heard Tommy and Eret came to visit earlier, how’d that go?” Fundy asks._ _

__Phil blinks, “Not well at all. I have a problem with authority and as much as Tommy claimed he was coming to me as my son, he truly wasn’t.”_ _

__“Why- how do you have a problem with authority? Techno was a king, wasn’t he? And Wilbur and Tommy were both presidents-”_ _

__“Well I’ve never had to bow to my own sons before, now have I?”_ _

__Fundy shrugs, “I just don’t get it. Just tell them no-“_ _

__“Kid, it's a coping mechanism, okay,” Phil frowns._ _

__“Techno was a king once.” Phil mutters, checking the other room, his son is nowhere to be seen, “But before that,”_ _

__He closes his eyes and can still taste the dust, can feel the gravel digging into his knees as he sat motionless when they drug his son away, “Before that, he was just a kid.”_ _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Feedback of any kind is so welcome and absolutely appreciated!
> 
> Part 5 comes soon... and man am I nervous. It will probably make or break this series.
> 
> See you then :)


End file.
